Gavin Henson plays through the pain

Feb 4 2008 by Tim Lewis, Western Mail

GAVIN HENSON revealed he had a pain-killing injection at half-time of Wales’ historic win over England because he was desperate to help turn things around.

The Ospreys centre, who celebrated his 26th birthday on Friday, was a shadow of his former self in the first half missing a number of key tackles and failing to make any impact with the ball in hand.

But an injection at half-time to numb the pain of an achilles problem helped Henson get back to his best and, along with Ospreys team-mates James Hook and Mike Phillips, inspire Wales to victory.

He said, “I was going through the motions and thinking about the injury rather than the game. I was just hoping to get to half-time and see if the doctor could do anything.

“I was hobbling around, but I didn’t want to come off because I knew we would come strong in the second half and I didn’t want to miss out.”

Wales trailed England by 10 points at half-time and it seemed as though the 20-year run of Twickenham defeats was set to continue and Henson admitted Wales were lucky to still be in the game.

“They had opportunities to score more in the first half and maybe it could have been a different game, but we still had a sniff at half-time,” he said.

“All credit must go to England because they kept possession well and didn’t allow us to play. But there was a huge belief despite things not going as well as we would have liked in the first half, we still believed we could go out there and win it.

“We hadn’t played any rugby yet so we had confidence going out for the second half.”

Henson said he was able to draw on the experience of beating France in 2005 when Wales were 15-6 down at half-time, but came back to steal the game 18-24. Similarly to the Paris fixture, Wales restricted the home side to just three points in the second half.

He said, “We allowed England the ball in the first half and the game was all theirs, but it was a similar experience to France in 2005. We always make hard work of it, that’s the way we are.

“Twickenham is a very tough place to come so it’s a pretty big feat we’ve achieved and I’m sure it will start to sink in soon.

“People will have to give us some credit because England have got some big leaders in the team, but things came together well and we closed the game out at the end which is not like us – but that’s the new Wales.

“We weren’t accurate enough in the first half and I don’t think we played much at all, but it was a totally different game in the second. We probably only played well for 10 minutes of the match, if you add it all up, but it was enough.

“We’ll sit down and have a look at the video and see what went wrong because we weren’t at our best today, but we got away with it.

“It’s a young team, but we’ve been together a while now. You watch teams like Munster, who are good at closing a game out, and it’s great that we were able to do it. If we can do that for the rest of the campaign, then hopefully it will see us through.”

Saturday’s victory over England was Henson’s first Six Nations fixture for two years and the Ospreys star said he was delighted to be back, especially with the new coaching team involved.

“With the new coaches there’s a great feeling in the camp so we are all looking forward to Scotland next week.

“Sean’s a really good guy and all of the boys have been really impressed with him, along with Warren and Rob Howley.

“There’s an edge to us in training now and we’ve been able to bring that onto the pitch. There’s a lot of confidence in the dressing room and that’s important.

“It’s easy to see why Sean’s a wanted man, working with him on a first-hand basis, I am learning things every day. Hopefully that will continue for the rest of the campaign and I will improve as a player along with the rest of the squad.”

Much was made about Warren Gatland’s decision to include 13 Ospreys players in the Wales starting line-up, but Henson believes it paid off on the day.

He added, “Warren just looked at what he thought was needed to put out the best team and it’s great he’s got the type of character to do it. The players he picked are all on form and, if they’ve done enough against England, they will keep their places.

“When we play against the English teams with the regions we do quite well so we didn’t fear them and we knew we could hurt them with ball in hand.

“If 13 Ospreys can go out there and beat England, I’m sure we can beat Saracens twice. It will give us a huge lift that we can take back to our club.”